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Ghost Canyon

Bruce Campbell & Sharon Gless ('Burn Notice') Bruce Campbell & Sharon Gless ('Burn Notice')

'Burn, Baby, Burn!'

With the summer half of 'Burn Notice's third season coming to a close with their mid-season finale tomorrow night (6th) at 9pm (est)!, and the winter half only a few months away, you may be wondering: What comes after that?

Wll, put your mind at ease, because we're making it official: 'Burn Notice' will be returning for a 4th Season of 16 episodes in 2010!

I recently had the opportunity to speak with both Bruce Campbell and Sharon Gless about this third season.

Bruce, I know that you played in Xena and Hercules as sort of a rogue who helped out the good guys as well. And Sharon, obviously you played Cagney, a bad-ass cop who also knew her way around bad guys. So I was curious how these roles may have helped to cultivate the characters that you play on 'Burn Notice'? [Gless] "Well, the only bad guys I have to find my way around are Jeffrey and Bruce. I mean, my job on the show is the mother from hell. I don’t get involved in the heavy stuff like they do."

[Campbell] "Well, I mean, I’ve always enjoyed playing a little left of center characters. Otherwise I’d be on a soap opera, you know. What’s attractive to me was that these are real characters. These are characters who drink and smoke and make mistakes and have foibles in love and try to fix their mother's garbage disposal. That’s what’s attractive to me. That’s what got me into this show and knowing that I’m with four, three other kind of seasoned adult actors. That’s always attractive when you know you’re going to be working with people that it’s going to be worth showing up for."

Sharon, what do you draw upon from real life in your characterization of Madeline? [Gless] "Well, my husband said, when he read the script, chain smoking half the time. And he said, how lucky are you, they’re paying you to smoke. So he said, wow, you do all the things with the cigarette. I said, “Well, yeah, I already knew how to do that.” What do I draw on? I’ve never actually had children, myself, but I just connected with Jeffrey’s character and every week it’s different and as the show goes along, Madeline, my character, first she’s totally in the dark and very needy and very sort of just all sort of emotional things that are unattractive."

"And as time went on, Matt Nix said, “Sharon, she’s smarter than what I was writing.” And he gave me one clue, he said, “Remember, he gets his smarts from her.” I said, “Oh, okay.” So I just took that information and it gave me and my character a little more confidence. But I don’t know, how do you prepare for playing someone who’s manipulative? Is it built in? I don’t know."

Well, aside from you two getting drunk together, how do you want to see Sam and Madeline’s relationship evolve in season four? [Gless] "Well, I think Sam and Maddie have kind of a really cool relationship. We were given a chance to live together. That helps. I didn’t tell Bruce this, but I really miss the fact that he moved out!"

[Campbell]] "And you know the one thing I should say, too. I can’t speak for other actors, but I don’t really probe the writers, I honestly don’t. I haven’t bugged them in three years about what’s coming up with Sam. Whether he’s going to have a home or a girlfriend. I like to sit back, just like the audience, and let it happen. I get excited reading the next script, because I don’t really know what they have planned. The season finale, I couldn’t tell you sitting here right now what’s going to happen. Not because I’m lying or that I’m not supposed to, I don’t know because I haven’t asked, I don’t want to know."

'Burn Notice' projects itself as a tutorial. It teaches you about different operatives and things you can use in real life. Have either of you ever been motivated to go ahead and try some of these things that the show teaches?! [Campbell] "No, and I don’t recommend it either. I don’t recommend that anybody build anything from any fictional show."

[Gless] "Right. Don’t try this at home."

[Campbell] "It’s very important, do not try this at home for all kinds of reasons. I do know, as an adventurous child, we sent UFOs up that were constructed of dry cleaning bags over balsa wood struts with candles as thrusters. And you know, we could have set the woods on fire. We had homemade explosives, we could have blown our hands off. So growing up in suburban Detroit, I definitely had an older brother who was crazy and we were always mixing the wrong things together. Making gunpowder, and so I’m glad to have survived, actually. But now as an adult I can look back and go, “Yeesh, man that was stupid.” So I don’t caution the separation of church and state when it comes to TV shows it’s all fake, folks."

Madeline is an unsecure, attention-seeking, chain smoking hypochondriac, so I was wondering how much of the real life you is involved in that role?! [Gless] "Let’s see, insecure and chain smoking, ... hi," she laughs. "But, your direct question to me was how much am I like Madeline? Madeline is growing, even though she doesn’t take as many pills. How much am I like her? I don’t know, I think there’s always a piece of me in everything that I play and you just go somewhere and you say, “Yeah, I can imagine that,” and you play it. Well, I’ve never had children but I’m, as the years go on in the show, I’m understanding every episode more about my relationship with this boy. He’s complicated, but I’ve not had children of my own, but I’m an actress, so I don’t know how I do it."

So, word has it there's a kinda 'Cagney and Lacey' reunion coming up on 'Burn Notice'?! [Gless] "Yes, working with Tyne again. It was wonderful. And I’m not just saying that. Tyne Daly is one of the finest actresses I’ve ever met or ever had the pleasure of working with. It was just like old times. I mean they were different characters, but we know each other now and her mother had a great expression. Okay, her mom said, “Sweat makes a great cement.” And she and I sweat together for six years and we just know each other’s timing, we know, and we love, we love to rehearse, we love to work, and it was a real treat for me and I think for all of us to have her on the show."

Sam is often assigned the job of babysitting Madeline. So, is there a future where the two of you get it one, perhaps?! [Campbell] "No, I don’t think we’d ever want the romantic angle because it would be too creepy sleeping with Michael’s mother. You know, it’s too inbred! We’ve developed a familial attitude of almost more like cousins or something."

[Gless] "Yes, I agree. And someone had asked me that before about what if the two of you, you know, and I said we’d have to probably be very drunk and the next morning it would be really hard at the water cooler. Sex ruins everything!"

Interviewed by: Russell A. Trunk

www.usanetwork.com/series/burnnotice

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